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Research Data Storage (RDS)

The Research Data Storage (RDS) system was designed to provide data storage for all research divisions at Cincinnati Children's. Researchers are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the RDS, which provides centralized and backed-up storage at a low or no cost to the investigator. The Division of Biomedical Informatics is spearheading the effort; the Cincinnati Children's Department of Information Services has operational control and provides 24x7 continuous support.

If you have general questions about the RDS that are not answered on this page, please send an email to help-rds@bmi.cchmc.org

RDS goals

To make centrally managed, secure data storage easily and transparently available to all researchers at Cincinnati Children's

To manage growth of the storage system so that it is predictable for the institution

To provide some basic amount of storage for free and make larger allocations available for a very competitive and attractive charge-back.

10GB per user (the "H: drive"). This replaces the current H: drive on the Celerra system with one that is limited by a 10GB quota. Investigators may request quota increases (see terms below). The H: drive is only accessible to the investigator him- or herself and is meant for personal data such as email etc.

100GB shared partition per division (the "G: drive"). This replaces the current G: drive on the Celerra system, and it is meant to store ALL data related to divisional business and administration. The use of the remainder of the quota is left at the discretion of the division and can be increased for an annual charge (see below).

Project directories for collaborations

Investigators who wish to allocate data storage for their research projects can send a request through the http://ibmi.cchmc.org site and get a project drive assigned to them within a few days.

All storage for project directories will be charged back (see below for rates).

Investigators are in control of who can access data on their project drives. Permissions can be given to any collaborator within the institution (not limited to the investigator's division).

Current charge back structure [1]

$0.10/GB/year for space without backup

$0.20/GB/year for space with full (two-month) backup

$0.40/GB/year for space with extended (one-year) backup

These charges do not cover the true costs of this storage to the institution but are rather a management instrument that should entice divisions and investigators to use data storage responsibly. We want to encourage investigators to periodically clean up their data and at the same time minimize unnecessary duplication. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have particular needs such as backup requirements that differ from the standard, we will be happy to work with you and customize storage for you.

Billing policies and procedures

Billing occurs at the end of the fiscal year

Cost is based on quotas, not usage

Costs for each drive are calculated weekly based on the quota at the start of the week

Total fiscal year cost is the sum of the weekly cost snapshots

Costs per drive cannot be split among multiple divisions; in cases where divisions share sponsorship of a drive, the billing division should initiate a separate cost transfer to recover amounts payable by the other division(s)

Support

All components of the system are supported 24x7 by the Department of Information Services (IS). Storage quota change requests are fulfilled within eight business hours (Monday through Friday, 7 am - 7 pm). New storage allocation requests are fulfilled within two business days.

What RDS replaces

RDS is strongly recommended as a replacement for any standalone computer or server hosting data as well as directly attached hard drives such as USB and Firewire hard drives.

Backups

All data is immediately replicated to an off-site system that is identical to the primary storage system, thus providing an additional level of redundancy (on top of the built-in redundancies in the system). 2 weeks of daily snapshots are available on the primary system and can be accessed by users (see instructions here (for Windows) or here (for Macs) on how to recover files). Additionally the last 10 weekly snapshots are available from the off-site copy. Please contact the BMI Help Desk for assistance if you need to recover data from more than 2 weeks ago.

Archiving options

In addition to the charge-back option of a one-time, read-only snapshot, BMI can work with you to evaluate options such as a DVD or external hard drive achival copy. Contact the BMI Help Desk if you are interested.

Performance

Performance varies based on the number of connected users and their activities. Maximum read and write performance is 100MB/s [2].

Supported access protocols

RDS currently supports Windows file sharing access from Windows, Mac and Linux. NFS support is planned for the future.

The Research IT Services group in the Division of Biomedical Informatics provides computational resources, services and support to investigators at Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.